Olivia was a Big Sur girl thru and thru. Walking barefoot under the redwoods, she enjoyed identifying the local plants and leaving offerings of leaves and nuts arranged in very particular ways for the forest fairies to find. Oli, as most of used to call her, was fearless about dipping into cold waterfall pools and fearless about repelling down a steep hillside in search for dragon caves. Oli understood she lived in a magical place. She understood how lucky she was and enjoyed every moment she was here.

On January 16th, 2019, nine-year-old Olivia died of a rare brain tumor called Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma. This is her story with the disease:

In late October of 2018, out of nowhere, Olivia suffered a brain bleed. Previous to this date, she had always been a healthy child and had never shown any symptoms. She was airlifted to Lucile Packard's Children Hospital at Stanford where she remained in the ICU for two weeks. The bleed had caused loss of feeling on the left side of her body, problems with balance and eye issues.

Once stable, Olivia was transferred to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center to do acute rehabilitation, the diagnosis was still unclear. Olivia worked hard at rehabilitation and showed signs of progress. She never complained about her situation and always greeted every person that walked through the door with a smile. She showed us that she was an exceptionally dignified, determined, resilient and courageous girl.

Just before being discharged from Santa Clara, Olivia suffered another brain bleed and after further MRIs, we were given the devastating news that no parent should ever have to hear; "Your daughter has a high- grade tumor that is incurable and terminal upon diagnosis”. We were told that the average life expectancy would be about 9 months. One month later, Olivia passed away peacefully, in the arms of her family at her home in Big Sur.

Like a brilliant comet, Olivia illuminated everything in her path. Her love and her spirit will forever continue to shine among us and will inspire us daily. We hope her story inspires you to be active, not just sorry.

Until Olivia’s passing, we were unaware of the disparity in funding and research for childhood cancer, compared to adult cancer. We would like to help Unravel change that. Please consider making a donation to Unravel; for finding ways to give kids with cancer a chance to beat it. We invite you to join us in this journey.

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OLIVIA's story

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Olivia

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everything

IN HER PATH.

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